Not Broken, Just Bent
by blue.rose.spobette
Summary: Spoby. Takes place during 4x11. Toby is furious with Spencer for telling the girls the one thing he asked her not to. But is he really mad at her, or is he mad at himself for asking anything of her after what he put her through? One-shot.


_**A/N:** For Lizzie, my Tumblr bestie._

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**Not Broken, Just Bent**

"Please come with me," she had pleaded, her russet eyes glistening with desperation. "It will be fun. I promise."

Fun. Right. Because hanging out in barn that carried the residual smell of potent manure, wearing this god-forsaken straw hat that made his perspiring forehead itch with unrelenting fervor, and being unpleasantly barraged with far more Johnny Cash than _ever_ he wanted to hear in a single sitting was the _exact_ thing he wanted to do on a Friday night.

But she had asked him. And it was not within his nature to deny her anything, even the most daunting of requests.

That wasn't even the problem, in and of itself. The problem was that he had spent half the night trying to track her down instead of at her side. The problem was that he hadn't wanted to come in the first place, and her company would have been the only saving grace of the evening.

The problem was that it was almost as though she was leaving him out of the loop on _purpose_.

The air in the room had been gradually thickening throughout the course of the night, and he felt as though he would suffocate on the tension that pressed against him from all angles.

He wasn't an idiot. He knew Spencer's secretive behavior tonight was not for nothing. The way she seemed to avoid letting him interact with her friends. The haste with which she whisked herself away when one of them came into shouting distance.

But her efforts weren't as effective as she may have perhaps liked. Granted, he hadn't gotten close enough to Emily to even throw a stone, but he had noticed the sad puppy eyes that she had been giving him the entire evening. It didn't help that every time he caught her staring, her gaze darted away quickly with an air of clandestine guilt. Emily may have been an empathetic creature by nature, but she did not hand away those forlorn glances for just anything.

She knew something. Something that he had the terrible, agitated sinking feeling was the exact thing she _shouldn't_ know.

So when Aria swept Spencer away to clue her in on yet another one of their infamous SOS emergencies, he escorted himself off the dance floor to retrieve some punch. It was horrendously watered down from the melted ice and tasted as though someone had added a shot or two of tequila, but it was all he could do to keep himself from hollering at the next person who looked at him the wrong way.

He wasn't sure he had ever been so angry with Spencer. Ever. But a significant part of him could not help feeling betrayed. He had locked so much in the vault for her over the course of their relationship. Had kept his mouth shut whenever she asked him to. Had helped her lie her way out of trouble with the cops after Jason's accident, despite the fact that he didn't quite feel like the unbalanced blond man was worth the risk. He had done it because it was important to _her_. Because she had _needed_ him to.

And the cold realization that she would not as easily do him the same courtesy was likened to being the stand-in for a battered ping-pong ball. He was constantly being thrust back and forth between his attempt to be understanding, and the complete and utter agony that his bleeding heart was spewing through his veins.

It wasn't long before he caught the scent of coffee and plumeria wafting in his direction. She was on her way back.

He did not turn to greet her, and from his peripherals he took note of her hesitation. Suddenly the sounds of the blaring music and boisterous crowd seemed to fade into a void of nothingness, and an unfamiliar awkward silence settled like a fog between their figures.

She was putting the pieces together quickly. She knew that he was upset.

When she spoke, her voice was meek with frightened frailty, and he was surprised that he was even able to hear her.

"Toby…"

"You told them," he interrupted quickly. "Didn't you?"

There was another pregnant pause, so laced with nuance that it provided him with the exact answer he need. The answer he dreaded most.

"How could you do that to me?" he demanded, his voice cold like the steel of a blade and nigh unrecognizable to even his own ears.

His tone seemed to knock her from her stupor, for she was on the defensive in an instant. "I didn't have a choice."

"You always have a choice," he countered, finally wheeling around to face her. Her doe eyes were wide with surprised incredulity, but he couldn't find the effort to be bothered with feeling guilty. "You promised."

Her hands were balling into stubborn fists at her sides, her face flashing with annoyance. "Toby, you've been putting me in the middle for weeks. I had to choose between you and them."

"And you chose them."

The gravity of his statement pierced the air like a well-aimed arrow straight into his heart, and judging by the quiet sheen of moisture that was quickly forming in her eyes, it had done the same to her. He was having a sudden sense of déjà vu, memories of their haunting anniversary inundating him to the point of dizzy disorientation. For a moment he thought they were going into instant replay mode, and that he would soon have another well-deserved welt on his cheek.

But she stood her ground. Just like she always did. "We're done here," she said icily.

"I guess we are," he retaliated pathetically, already feeling the impending argument hangover starting to take shape in his gut. His anger was quickly ebbing, as it usually did, but the damage was already done. She was pushing her way back through the crowd in Hanna's direction, metaphorical steam erupting from her ears.

"Damn it," he muttered, slamming his hand open-palmed onto the tabletop. The contents of the punchbowl rippled as a result of the impact.

And suddenly, it was as though all of the unpleasant stimulation that had been prickling him the whole night was suddenly amped up to max volume. The music made his head pound, the cowboy hat felt as though it was cutting into his flesh, and the smell of horse shit was going to make him hurl.

He yanked the damn hat off – good riddance – and stomped, quite childishly, he would realize later, toward the open door. The night air did little to soothe his newfound anxiety, but at least he could breathe out here. He plopped himself rather carelessly onto the tailgate of a nearby hay wagon, wringing his hands together to stop them from quivering.

He tried to imagine how she would paint the picture to Hanna. How Hanna would insist that Spencer had every right to be angry, and that he was an asshole for not understanding. How she'd run and tell Caleb before the current song even ended, and he'd probably lose the only male friend he had ever made in his life.

The nausea increased tenfold at the very thought. As if the possibility of losing Spencer were not debilitating enough, he had to consider the fact that he had quite likely splintered every friendship he had into irreparable oblivion.

Mona's incorporeal face swam into his head, and her words from so long ago echoed deep in every fissure of his mind.

"_You'll never belong anywhere except with me, Toby." _

He pressed the balls of his hands against his temples, as if to force the image back down into the lockbox of his subconscious. He had joined the A-Team for one reason, and one reason only: to ensure Spencer's safety. But he could not deny that Mona's tactful manipulation was wont to strike a nerve or two along the way.

And there it was again. The dull ache that laid anchor in his heart. His ribcage felt suddenly quite hollow, and the emptiness was nearly crippling.

"Hey."

The new voice startled him into a bit of a jump, and he whipped his neck around to investigate.

It was Caleb. His hands were stuffed roguishly in his back pockets, one steel-toed cowboy boot kicking gently at an empty soda bottle. "I heard what happened."

Record timing, of course. He couldn't have been gone for more than two or three minutes.

"Naturally," Toby mused darkly. He scooted down the length of the tailgate to make room for his companion, which Caleb accepted accordingly. They sat in amiable silence for a moment before Caleb's baritone punctured the wall.

"You know, I thought Hanna's dependence on her friends was going to be the death of me."

Toby said nothing, but quietly turned to face him in an effort to portray his undivided attention.

"It almost broke us once," he continued, his eyes fixating on a spot somewhere in the distance. "I was ready to walk away. Away from the secrets…away from the constant threat of 'A' coming between us, yet again. I thought that if I made the decision myself – took control of the situation – that it would be easier."

A gentle breeze swept by, carrying the last of Caleb's words into the night sky. They seemed to hang there precariously, awaiting some sort of closure.

"And did it?" Toby ventured, though he had a feeling he knew the answer already.

Caleb pursed his lips together nonchalantly, offering a slow shake of his head. "Nope."

There was another pause.

"So what did you do?"

"I threw myself into the pit. Head-fucking-first," Caleb stated matter-of-factly, propping one leg onto the wagon and dangling his arm across the knee. "Hell, I've got the bullet wound to prove it."

"It's not my own safety I'm worried about," Toby replied, and the words came so easily that he was vividly reminded of the deal he had made with the devil so long ago. "That's not the issue."

"I know," Caleb agreed. He had picked up a stray thread of hay and was peeling it apart, layer by layer, with his fingers. "The issue is that nothing you do will ever be enough to make _her_ feel safe."

The statement was doused so explicitly in common sense that its impact surprised Toby. He could feel the threat of tears pricking at the corners of his eyes, and his limbs suddenly felt numb with dark realization.

If Caleb noticed the dramatic shift in his body language, he did not indicate it.

"But the girls," he continued quietly. "They've been through a lot together. And as much as you or I – or Paige, or Ezra, or whoever – try to understand the depth of it, we'll never quite get there."

Toby released an all-mighty sigh, nodding thoughtfully. As much as it pained him to consider that there would always be a part of Spencer's world that he could not quite connect with, he knew that Caleb's explanation rang true. Spencer was bonded to her friends with wrought-iron anchors. Nothing short of the apocalypse was ever going to sever it.

And it wasn't that he wanted it broken, of course. It just would have been nice to feel as though his soul was soldered to hers in similar fashion – to be able to wake up each and everyday knowing that the reach of their love was infinite, and that his companionship gave her at a semblance of security at least _comparable_ to that she gleaned from her friends.

"So you're at a crossroads, man," Caleb added. "Do you stay, or do you go?"

He gulped involuntarily at the question, and it seemed to burn all the way down his esophagus. Caleb regarded him for a brief moment, as if allowing the ultimatum to sink in, before he hopped back onto his feet.

"Just something to think about."

"Thanks," Toby muttered distractedly, perching his elbows on his knees and clasping his hands beneath his chin.

Caleb reached out to clap a supportive hand on the elder's shoulder, and made his retreat back to the barn.

Toby was alone once more, feeling invariably crushed by the weight of everything around him. There was no possible way he could leave her. The very thought caused a sharp, piercing pain akin to carving out an internal organ. But was this – _all of this_ – truly as simple as whether or not he could live without her? Or did it transcend into a territory that he could not possibly navigate?

"Is this seat taken?"

He leapt a bit for the second time that night as the rasp of her voice danced into his eardrums. He shook his head quickly, patting the empty seat beside him in invitation.

She lowered herself down onto the tailgate with some hesitation, nervously fumbling with the clasp of her overalls. The silence settled so thickly that Toby wondered if he should wait for her to speak first, or punctuate the awkward quietude himself just to put them both out of their misery.

"I was afraid you'd left," she whispered softly, a vague but detectable tremor in her voice.

He shook his head slowly. "No. I'm still here."

The exchange was superficial at best, but he had the distinct feeling that the answer represented something far more significant – for both of them.

She released a shuddering breath, folding her hands in her lap. "I don't want to fight. I've spent enough time being mad at you to last me the rest of my life."

Her comment stung, though he knew it was not her intention. They hadn't addressed that fateful night and its implications nearly as much as they probably should have, but it just never seemed like there was an opportune time to do so. So many other things were going on. It was like they were stuck in the eye of a whirlpool, and were just fighting to keep their heads above water. Adding anything else to the mix would surely result in utter self-destruction.

So he offered a simple, "I know."

Another breeze floated by, tousling her pigtails in its wake. He heard her sniff quietly beside him, and it was enough to draw down the remainder of his feeble wall. He slid his hand across the wooden plank to grasp at hers, squeezing tightly to convey everything he could not say. She offered a meek squeeze back.

"Do you love me, Toby?"

It was the last thing he had expected to hear, and it admittedly caught him off-guard. "What kind of question is that?"

"One that I need you to answer," she pleaded desperately, turning to face him with her full attention. He noticed now that there were mascara stains paving a path down her cheekbones, and he felt a sick pang of guilt. "Please."

"Of course I do," he replied fervently. "With every piece of my soul. Spencer, what's – ?"

She interrupted him, her lips crashing onto his in a firm, albeit hesitant, kiss. It was over no sooner than it had begun, and he felt every hair on the back of his neck stand up in protest when she pulled away.

"I'm so sorry," she began tearfully. "I know you asked me not to tell them – I know you needed to know that you could trust me."

"…But I also know that they're your best friends," he offered quietly, and he found that the words were coming to him with far more ease than he had anticipated. "And it isn't fair for me to put you in the middle."

"They've always been there for me," she agreed. "Even when…"

She trailed off, and the silent implication spoke louder volumes than the actual words possibly could have. He felt a shiver of regret tickle the length of his spine.

"Even when I wasn't," he finished darkly.

The matter in which she winced seemed to insinuate a half-hearted apology, but he was well aware that both of them knew she wasn't quite sorry. Nor should she have been. For all intents and purposes, he had abandoned her. And even though admitting it out loud caused him more pain than anything else he had ever endured in his life, he would never ask or expect her to forget what she had been through.

"I'm sorry," he murmured, and found that his voice felt strangled by the threat of oncoming emotion. Simple though this apology was, he hoped that she understood just how many layers he was attempting to traverse.

Because he _was_ sorry. He was sorry for _everything_. Not just what he had put her through tonight, but for all of the pain he had inflicted upon her from the moment she stepped onto his front porch. He had done nothing but fan the flame and made a difficult situation that much more unbearable. And the sudden onslaught of guilt was suffocating.

A stray tear escaped from the corner of his eye and dribbled down his cheek, and he turned away in shame. He had no right to cry in front of her. He had no right to feel sorry for himself. And the last thing he should be doing was opening a floodgate that she would surely feel the obligation to dam for him.

His action did not go unnoticed. She had curled one gentle hand across the curve of his jawline and was drawing his face back to hers. He allowed her this, but remained adamant about keeping his gaze away from hers.

She didn't say anything for a moment. She merely brushed her thumb across the cool moisture cascading down his chin, a quiet tremor in her breathing.

"I'm sorry, too," she offered.

"You don't owe me an apology," he insisted with more force than necessary. "I'm the last person in the world that you should ever apologize to."

"Don't," she returned, just as much displaced venom curdling her words as his. "You've punished yourself enough, Toby…I've seen it."

He inhaled sharply, embarrassed to find that it sounded shaky with tears.

"I love you," she said softly, pressing her forehead to his temple. Her hands roamed near their laps to find his, intertwining their fingers together. "And I forgive you."

The simple statement made him want to shout with self-deprecating disdain and cry with unabashed relief all at once. The latter was the first to take hold, an involuntary sob bursting from his throat.

He wasn't sure how long they sat there, their tears mingling together into a braid of saline across their faces. But the mere feeling of her embrace was enough to calm his racing heart and provide him with a sense of comfort that he had not allowed himself to feel in months.

And for the first time in his entire life, the balloon of something unfamiliar began to take shape in his heart. It pressed against his insides with a sort of satisfying discomfort, like the ambivalent relief of tearing off a Band-Aid. It released a tension from his shoulders that he did not even realize existed. It made him light-headed.

A single sentence crept into his mind, commanding the attention of every other racing thought in his brain.

_It's time to forgive yourself. _

**_END_**


End file.
